Photos from the Maine Marathon, Oct 7, 2007
I didn't take many photos at "the other Portland" marathon. I started out with my niece Kirsten who was running the first leg of the marathon relay. She wasn't planning to run fast and neither was I but we passed mile 1 at 7:45 and she was still speeding up, so she took off and I slowed down - a little. At 3 miles I was averaging 8:20/mile so I decided to continue with 8 minute miles for another 3. At 10 miles I was running under 7:45/mile and starting to think I might try to qualify for Boston, a dream I'd almost given up hope of achieving. By the halfway point the possibility of Boston pretty well ruled out any more photo stops. I didn't begin to slow down until mile 21 and by then I was 6 minutes ahead of my fastest previous time and aiming for sub 3:30. I broke that by almost 3 minutes, finished in 3:27:16, beat my previous PR by 9 1/2 minutes and qualified for Boston with more than 8 minutes to spare. What a race!
Click a picture to see a larger view.
